BYRON'S HEROINES

First edition. Publisher's original black cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. Illustrated with two black and white plates. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. With a touch of spotting to the front endpaper and prelims, and some marginalia in red ink by the previous owner Dr. Richard Rowland (pages 101, 148-9, and 158, respectively), the contents are otherwise clean throughout, and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the better than very good, lightly rubbed dustwrapper, which is mildly faded to the spine and folds, with a small brown stain and a little bleed from the cloth to the underside.

From the library of (and with marginalia of) Dr Richard Rowland, editor and author on the Renaissance and classical mythology, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. 'Caroline Franklin takes an original and polemical standpoint, reading Byron within the setting of the contemporary debate on the nature, role, and rights of women in society. The heroines of Byron's narrative and dramatic verse are considered, not from a biographical perspective, but by relating these representations to ideologies of sexual difference which obtained in the poet's day. Viewed in their literary-historical context, these Byronic heroines are compared with other female protagonists of the age, thereby revealing the poet to be unusually honest and bold in his portrayal of female sexuality and its relation to political issues' (publisher's blurb).